Crush And Run

A part of the Crush & Run course

Nashville resident, Dan Hensley, a Trans Iowa veteran and proprietor of the Nashville Bicycle Lounge, is super-stoked to let us all know about the "Crush and Run", a new gravel/back roads event near the Nashville, Tennessee area. This one is set to take place October 1st, 2011.

The Crush and Run will be a self supported event with 50 mile or 100 mile options for riders to choose from. All riders will navigate via cue sheets and the route will be a secret right up until the event start.

Want to know more? Registration is open now and the field is limited to 100 riders, so get on the stick! See their site here for more details.

Gravel Grinder Gear: Interbike 2011

I attended Interbike 2011 and although my main focus was not to check out gravel grinding stuff, I did see a fair amount of things that caught my eye. Check out the following....

The All City Space Horse is actually billed as a "light touring bike", but I see gravel grinding written all over it. A bit more relaxed geometry than a road bike, deeper bottom bracket drop for stability, a hair longer in the rear end, and cantilever brakes for clearance for mud. Tire size this can take is stated to be up to a 42mm without fenders, or 38mm with fenders. Rack mounts and fender mounts, of course.

The bike was shown with 38mm tires mounted. Here's a look at the clearances.

And that was with the wheel slammed all the way forward. Move it back and gain more clearance. (Nice looking dropout too, by the way.)

 Raleigh showed a new steel commuter/cross/urban rig they called "Furley", (think "Three's Company"), and it is a single speed rig with disc brakes.

Here's a shot of the tire clearances. The Furley is shown here with a 32mm tire mounted. Raleigh says you can shoe horn a 38mm in there, but I don't know how much clearance that would leave. Not much, by the looks of it. Note the spoke holder tab on the chain stay.

The Furley comes single speed with traditional vertical drop outs. The chain is tensioned by this small eccentric against the PressFit-30 BB shell, as shown here. Loosen the opposing Allen head bolts to adjust and tighten it back up again. The outer black anodized eccentric shape presses against the BB shell when the bolts are tightened to prevent slipping of the eccentric. This part is made for Raleigh by FSA and may become an after-market bit through Raleigh.

Not into single speed? Raleigh does a geared version called "Roper" which should do the trick. The single speed Furley will retail at about $800.00 and the geared Roper at about $1400.00. These aren't weight conscious rigs though, so plan on upgrading fork, wheels, and some odds and ends if you have designs on racing one of these.

The popular Salsa Cycles Vaya returns for 2012 in three levels. Two steel versions and a titanium frame as well.

Redline showed this orange beauty dubbed the "Metro Classic". Disc brake roadie with slightly relaxed geometry and a low offset/high trail fork that should prove to be pretty stable. If you don't need the really big tires, this looks pretty tasty.

Topeak showed two new top tube "gas tank" type bags that have water resistant fabric and waterproof zippers. This is the large size and a slightly smaller size will also become available. No word on MSRP's yet. It was also noteworthy that Salsa Cycles will be carrying frame bags of Revelate Design manufacture for its bikes, and that Quality Bicycle Products will also be carrying top tube, seat, and other types of "bikepacking" style bags.

Topeak also introduced a 29"er specific rack that presumably would fit any big 700c tire or fat bike. This is tubular aluminum construction.

Twin Six showed this graphic style that the boys designed for Raleigh's single speed aluminum cross frame. This is a very limited edition frame, fork, and (hopefully), Gates Carbon Center Track rig that will be offered through Twin Six's site and through Raleigh. Stay tuned for more details.......

Hey Schwalbe fans, does this tire look familiar? Schwalbe got creamed with requests to bring back the old Marathon Extreme, so they did, only now they call it the "Marathon Mondial". No matter, it is the same Pace Star compound, Triple Defense protection tire you gravel grinders all made famous.

And a truly new for 2012 tire from Schwalbe, the "Road Plus", which looks like a great gravel grinder tire as well.


That's it for this year! Thanks for reading Gravel Grinder News!

The Heroic: New Event With A Twist

Gravel events on the grassroots level keep getting more inventive all the time. This is an event I got wind of weeks ago, but is now something that looks to be getting off the ground now. It's called "The Heroic"

The premise seems to be that of having an event that hearkens back to the road racing days of yore. Riders will be limited to wearing woolen jerseys and will be required to carry spare tubes or tires in the fashion of pre-war racers of the 20th Century.

Limited to a field of 50 by picked up invitation only, this event will be a self supported deal with "no winner", but some prizing seems to be on offer.

Sound odd? want to learn more? Check out the events info page here.

Keeping My Eyes Open

All City Cycles Space Horse Proto

Next week I'll be at Interbike, and while I won't be specifically there to capture everything good for gravel grinding, I will be keeping my eyes open for anything good that might be of interest.

For a preview, I was tipped off to this image of a drop out from the Bike Jerks blog which indicates that something new from All City will be on display at Interbike. What it is exactly, I cannot say, but it is being described as a "multi surface shit kicker". 

Stay tuned for anything I come up with in about a week right here.

Moonshine Metric Gravel Ride

Moonshine Metric Gravel Ride:

Ever ride gravel roads at night? It is a hoot, lemme tell ya! (And I simply haven't done enough of that this year!)

Anyway, here is an event to get yer feet wet doing just that, (no- not getting your feet wet, riding gravel at night!). Check out this ride out of Mount Vernon, Iowa, which will take place October 15th, 2011. That's a Saturday night, if you are wondering.

By the way, this is not a race! It is a "gentlemanly ride" and will be self supported, self navigated, and should be somewhere around 63-65 miles in length.

See all the details for yourself, and how to register on the site here.